


and we will rise stronger still

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: Week One: Oblivious [8]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Miracuteam, Team Bonding, marinette why did you split the party, probably should not be done this way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-12 03:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20145193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: "This is a catastrophe," Chat Noir groans, leaning his forehead against the crane game currently mocking him. One ear twitches backward forlornly."This is a minor inconvenience at best," Queen Bee argues, flipping her hair back and adding another Ladybug plush to her slowly growing pile."This is why Ladybug usually doesn't suggest the three of us team up without her or Carapace, that's what this is." Rena Rouge picks her way very gingerly around the poorly-lit train station.  "Are we sure this isn't a trap?  Because this really feels like a trap." She gestures around the decaying station, unlit and abandoned except for the alcove where Chat Noir and Queen Bee are wrestling with the crane game.





	and we will rise stronger still

**Author's Note:**

> for the 'catastrophe' prompt for adrienaugreste 2k19 and also because i want more miracuteam content

"This is a catastrophe, " Chat Noir groans, leaning his forehead against the crane game currently mocking him. One ear twitches backward forlornly.

"This is a minor inconvenience _at best_," Queen Bee argues, flipping her hair back and adding another Ladybug plush to her slowly growing pile. 

"_This _is why Ladybug usually doesn't suggest the three of us team up without her or Carapace, that's what this is." Rena Rouge picks her way very gingerly around the poorly-lit train station. "Are we sure this isn't a trap? Because this _really_ feels like a trap." She gestures around the decaying station, unlit and abandoned except for the alcove where Chat Noir and Queen Bee are wrestling with the crane game.

Chat Noir is wrestling with it, anyway. Queen Bee has already racked up a pile of Ladybug plushies. She's not making even the slightest attempt to hide her lack of interest in any of the other stuffed heroes. Adrien would be offended, except that _he _hasn't tried to get anyone but Ladybug, either.

"See? Rena agrees it's a catastrophe," he argues, trying the crane game again. He's not doing any better than he was before but he's pretty sure if he fails enough attempts in _just_ the right way, the plush he's going for will end up where he can grab for it. 

Queen Bee sighs and shoulders him out of the way. "Let me show you how it's done, you mangy stray."

"No, seriously." Rena Rouge stops by Queen Bee's pile of stuffed Ladybugs. "Not _your_ catastrophe, Chat Noir, because you know you can just _buy these_ you guys, they're in like every corner store now, but come on. An akuma calls himself _Faireplay_ and vanishes and then we start finding suspiciously-placed carnival games?"

"Did you want a turn?" Chat Noir asks her, because he's close enough to see her swipe one of Chloe's prizes and pocket it.

"No, it's probably cursed! Quit playing it!" Rena reddens when he raises an eyebrow at her, though, before her expression turns affronted and she nods down at the remaining toys. She waves towards him and raises her own eyebrow. 

Chat Noir shakes his head, making a face, and Rena Rouge rolls her eyes. 

"Win your own," Queen Bee says, suddenly looming behind Rena. Her eyes are narrowed behind her mask and one of her hands twitches towards Rena like she's going to snatch her prize back.

Chat Noir makes an entirely different face. 

"You won't be winning anything!" The shout echoes through the abandoned station, bouncing off walls, impossible to place.

All three of them look at each other.

"Wasn't me?" Chat Noir offers, finally, scratching idly at his neck. His fingers feel oddly stiff.

Rena raises her hands. "Wasn't me. Chloe?"

"Queen _Bee_," she mutters, but then she tosses her hair back again and adds, "Wasn't me, either."

"It was me!"

Chat Noir makes a show of looking around.

With a growl, Faireplay detaches himself from the shadowy wall beside the crane game, which vanishes into a puff of-

"Glitter?" Rena says, disbelief evident in her voice as she cards a hand through the space where the game used to be. "I'm sorry, did you just discorporate this thing into _glitter_?"

Queen Bee scowls at the table where the Ladybug plushies had been collected. The table, too, is coated in a layer of glitter with no sign of the stuffed toys. "Hey, I won those fair and square!"

"Nobody is winning anything!" Faireplay roars. "You're all going to taste defeat!"

Ladybug comes skidding in and stops beside Chat Noir as the villain shoves a cotton candy machine into existence. 

As soon as he meets Ladybug's eyes Chat Noir is suddenly very, very glad that there's no obvious evidence for what his team has been doing this whole time.

He also deliberately keeps his own gaze well away from the glitter-covered table.

"Carapace is right behind me," Ladybug says, hastily, and when Chat Noir looks back at her for any further information he sees that his _partner _is absolutely covered in glitter.

"What happened to you?" he asks, amused, falling easily into place at her side. 

"Ferris wheel, Carapace took it down," Ladybug grunts, before blinking at him. "What happened to your _hands_, kitty?"

Chat Noir blinks back before raising his hands to his face. They're covered in glitter, too- in fact he thinks the amount of glitter on his hands alone rivals the amount covering his partner. "Um."

"Found a crane game, made poor decisions, _still a bad guy_ _in the room_," Queen Bee calls pointedly.

"Um," Ladybug echoes. "Let's... let's maybe try to finish this _before_ we find out what that does."

"For once," Rena Rouge mutters, sidling over to Queen Bee's side and lifting her flute threateningly. 

They have Faireplay flanked now, and Chat Noir sees the akuma's eyes dart to the exit briefly before the exit is shadowed by Carapace's arrival.

Carapace is clear of glitter and his eyes are narrowed behind his goggles. He looks more annoyed than Adrien's yet seen him. His Miraculous isn't flashing warnings; he must have stopped somewhere to recharge.

Chat Noir is seized with the sudden need to know what _exactly_ happened with that Ferris wheel.

"Five on one isn't exactly fair play," Faireplay tries, weakly.

He gets hit by a shield, a flute, and a spinning top all in the same breath. Chloe shrieks, "_Venom_," at almost the same time as Ladybug's "Miraculous Ladybug!"

Chloe misses, and a spotted glow stick falls into Ladybug's outstretched hands. 

"What," Chloe says, glaring daggers at her own hands. They twitch, her fingers refusing to close. "_Oh_."

Chat Noir gives his own hands a worried glance, but Chloe had taken more rounds at the crane game than he had. His fingers _are_ stiffer than usual but it's no more difficult for him to work around than the claws were initially.

Ladybug furrows her eyebrows at her Lucky Charm, then her eyes light up. "How close are we to a bakery?"

"I can get there and back in two minutes," Chat Noir offers immediately.

Ladybug grasps his shoulder and squeezes before turning back to the akuma, placing the lucky charm at her side where she keeps her yo-yo. "I need you to get dish soap and dry yeast, mix the yeast with water, and come right back."

Chat Noir stares at her for a moment, then shakes his head and takes off running. Faireplay tries to throw something in his way but he dodges without looking to see what it is- by now he's learned that looking back while running _never_ proves to be a good idea. 

The nearest bakery is Marinette's parents and as soon as Chat Noir comes skidding through the door, wide-eyed with his tail flicking in agitation, Marinette's father looks up from the counter and promptly excuses himself. Sabine slides seamlessly into his place, waving at Chat Noir as she wraps up with a customer.

It's a testament to how often the city is attacked that there _are _still customers, but it's also a testament to how rightfully popular the bakery is.

"What do you need, son?" M. Dupain asks, wiping his hands off, and Adrien brightens more than he'd like to admit at the address.

"Ladybug sent me for dish soap and dry yeast, for her Lucky Charm," he explains, only slightly out of breath, and watches as M. Dupain holds out his hand and Marinette's mother tosses him dish soap from somewhere behind the counter and he catches it without looking back. "And- and she said to mix the yeast with water." Adrien has a suspicion, based on that, but he doesn't know for sure just yet.

"Give me a moment, I'll get the yeast," Marinette's father assures him, pressing the dish soap into his hands.

By the time Chat Noir returns to the battle, he has both what his Lady asked for and a bag with several pastries slung over his shoulder, 'for the team to share after they've won.'

He's very glad that he ran to Marinette's.

"Here, kitty, kitty," Ladybug calls as she sees him, faltering for the barest second as her eyes land on his bag. She raises her voice a second later. "I need you and Carapace."

There are three each of Rena Rouge and Queen Bee keeping Faireplay distracted, so Carapace catches his shield on a rebound and sprints over to them. Chat Noir's already pulling out the mixed yeast and water and the dish soap.  


Ladybug holds up the glow stick. Her hand is clenched tightly, stubbornly, around it, and Adrien suspects she's feeling the stiffness from the glitter dust set in. "Carapace, we'll need your shield. Can you set it on the ground and then use Shellter around the glass vial in the glow stick?"

Carapace shrugs off his shield. "Sure, why?"

"You'll see in a second. Chat Noir, when he does that, I need you to break the rest of the glow stick when I tell you to." Ladybug takes the dish soap from Chat Noir, juggles everything she's holding, and pours dish soap into Carapace's upturned shield. 

Chat Noir, blinking down at the shield, can see that it's gained a coat of glitter of its own in the minutes he's been gone. The glitter swirls into the dish soap as the shield clatters against the ground, not yet quite still, and Ladybug traps the edge with her foot before it can tip too far in any one direction.

"Any time now would be great!" Queen Bee shouts, as one of her illusory clones is hit by an inflatable novelty sword. The clone puffs into nothingness at the same moment as the inflatable sword breaks into glitter. 

Rena Rouge's Miraculous beeps.

So do Ladybug's and Queen Bee's, nearly in sync.

Ladybug swirls the bottle of yeast and water in one hand and holds out the glow stick with the other. Chat Noir and Carapace reach out almost at the same time.

"_Shellter,_" Carapace says, audibly stressed, and the smallest protective shell Chat Noir's seen from him yet shrinks in around the centre of the glow stick. 

Chat Noir glances at Ladybug, who nods at him, and Cataclysms the rest of the glow stick.

"Carapace, let it go," Ladybug instructs, and as soon as he does the glass vial left behind falls and shatters into Carapace's shield.

And glittery foam immediately begins to bubble up from the depths of the shield.

"Glow sticks have _hydrogen peroxide _in them?" Adrien says, curiously, even as he helps Carapace and Ladybug lift the shield and hurl it towards the akuma, sending Queen Bee and Rena Rouge both vaulting out of the way.

Faireplay screeches as he's covered in foam and glitter, but it appears to be in confused shock rather than pain. He still manages to block Rena Rouge's swipe for his wristband but doesn't recover in time to stop Queen Bee snatching it- except that her hands convulse instead of closing on it. 

Carapace hits Faireplay right in the knees with a diving tackle, bringing them both down in a tangle, and the wristband goes flying far enough for Rena Rouge to catch it and tear it in half. 

"_Miraculous Ladybug_," Ladybug says as soon as the butterfly is visible, and the ladybug swarm is briefly very, _very_ shiny as it tears through the glitter before everything is set back to rights. 

Carapace and Chat Noir have the most time left on their Miraculous, so while Carapace goes to comfort the extremely disoriented fairgoer Chat Noir sidles up alongside Ladybug.

She ducks her shoulder to let him lean on it as he offers her the contents of his bakery bag. "What is it, minou- oh." She blinks. 

Chat Noir scratches the back of his neck with his free hand. "Uh, I know you've gotta get the other Miraculous back, but maybe first... we could all retransform and meet back up? They, uh." He nods at the bag. "The Dupain-Chengs suggested celebrating after we won."

"_Oh_," Ladybug repeats, softly. Then she squares her shoulders, careful not to dislodge him, and takes a deep breath before calling to the others. "Everyone, we're not done for the day! Once you're retransformed come meet us at-" She hesitates. 

Chat Noir leans a little harder on her and suggests, "Parc des Buttes-Chaumont? Under the bridge?" That's both clear enough for all five of them to find, and vague enough about _where_ in the park and _which_ bridge that the akuma victim with them likely won't be able to tell anyone where they've gone. Assuming he even recalls this conversation; he's still fairly out of it.

"We're not-" Ladybug sighs. "Yes, all right. Does that work for everyone?"

"See you in half an hour," Queen Bee replies, and then does a very dramatic and unnecessary backflip out of the exit. 

Carapace has his hand on the still-dazed victim's elbow and nods as he guides the man back outside. "Half an hour."

Rena Rouge salutes and follows after them. 

Chat Noir and Ladybug untangle themselves and look at each other. 

"Elephant toothpaste?" he asks her, raising an eyebrow.

She grins back at him, delighted. "_You _knew what it was, kitty." Her earrings beep. "See you in ten minutes?"

There's relief in his return grin. He knows she doesn't mean to replace him with any of the others, he _knows_ that, but it helps him when she makes a point of reassuring him and she knows it. "Ten minutes, my Lady."

It's their first team picnic, and it's the first time they've really taken the time to celebrate a victory. Queen Bee complains half the time about having to sit on the ground and tries to convince Ladybug to 'Lucky Charm us up a picnic blanket' and Rena Rouge moves behind her and makes exaggerated versions of her facial expressions at one point until Carapace pulls her back down, and the food is all excellent, and it's a great deal of fun. 

It's their first team picnic, but it won't be their last.

**Author's Note:**

> the very first exchange between chat noir and queen bee is why the entire rest of the fic exists i just wanted to make that joke
> 
> and then my randomized item for the lucky charm was a glow stick and that. went places i didnt expect, and i do not quite know how i got to elephant toothpaste: https://sciencebob.com/fantastic-foamy-fountain/
> 
> title this time is from blackmore's night's world of stone


End file.
